Hey folks. I'm Brendan Lim and I'm studying architecture at school in New York. I'm 21 years old, and had a brief dark age during high school wherein the Legos went away and the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings miniatures dominated my hobby time. I rediscovered the joy of Legos in 2008 on various weekends home from school, and primarily enjoy building microscale capital ships, though I've been known to dabble in other science fiction creations. Most of the ships I build are from a rather sprawling fiction that I've created over the years that I've yet to commit to any sort of writing--and may never.

Update: The Rameses is done (except for a minor detail). Pictures will be up as soon as I take them.

Usually my designs originate from quick sketches I make in notebooks, often during class, and inspirations include Babylon 5, Stargate, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Iain M. Banks (especialy the ship names!), internet concept art, and of course other Lego shipbuilders, unto whom I am in great debt. Before I stumbled by chance upon Kelso's Invisible Hand and Varszegi's Venator, I simply didn't realize that anyone ever built anything bigger than the UCS Star Destroyer; my biggest creations before then were no more than 80 studs and rather rudimentary in terms of technique (really limited SNOT and whatnot).

My weakest point in both architecture and Lego is properly documenting my models. I've built somewhat more than I have posted, but rarely do I make myself properly take and edit photographs to display them. And those photos I do take are often somewhat lacking.

Regarding my ships

Almost everything I build is rooted somehow or another in the sprawling fiction of my own imagination that I have yet to put down to paper. The mythology of this story involves several factions set up, in the somewhat distant future, by godlike immortal beings clashing in an ideological war. The Empire, headed by the Phoenix Queen Myonel, is dedicated somewhat paradoxically to ending the influence of immortal beings over mortals, whereas its main enemies, such as House Kevana, House Aggastomenon, and the Legion of Shadow are dedicated to ensuring the predominance and worship of immortal beings.

The ships of this era run on what I've dubbed Arcane power. Magic, for all intents and purposes. Essentially, arcane capacitors can store absurd amounts of energy, orders of magnitude higher than that able to be stored or produced by non-arcane means. While granting the ships that use arcane energy enormous power, such technology also creates a reliance on sources of arcane power. Furthermore, since arcane power cannot be generated, only stored, it essentially puts a cap on how much a ship can do between recharges. Some ships specialize in energy efficiency and storage capacity, while others are optimized for being able to discharge as much energy as quickly as possible. Expensive ones might good at both.

Ships are generally controlled by either powerful immortal spirit-beings or extremely advanced hypercomputers--and sometimes by combinations. These capable sentiences essentially adopt ships as their bodies, much like Minds in Iain M Banks' Culture novels. The combination of advanced technology and these incredibly potent sentiences allows for space combat that happens across immense distances (light seconds to light hours) at incredibly fast paces. Most confrontations between single ships last less than 5 seconds. Even massive fleet engagements lasting more than a minute are extremely rare. Arcane-powered ships weaponry can transcend the lightspeed barrier.

There is little room for ordinary humans to be of use in such a combat environment, and many warships operate without any human passengers.

And because I love making lists...

Capital Ship Classification Rubric:Gunship: Small, nimble ship meant to destroy fighters.
Corvette: Small, nimble ship meant to destroy gunships.
Monitor: Small ship meant to provide orbital firepower support to terrestrial forces.
Light Frigate: Small, nimble, and cheap warship that provides firepower support to larger ships.
Frigate: More powerful version of the above.
Assault Frigate: Light warship equipped with troop carrying capacity and optimized for planetary assault.
Fast Destroyer: Nimble, short range ship dedicated to combating enemy capital ships.
Destroyer: More powerful, less nimble version of the above.
Heavy Destroyer: Even more powerful, less nimble version of the above.
Fast Cruiser: Long range, high-endurance ship dedicated to capital ship combat. Often used for surgical strikes.
Cruiser: High endurance workhorse ship, well rounded.
Assault Cruiser: Powerful, high endurance workhorse ship. Generally considered the most economical warship type.
Logistics cruiser: Cruiser specializing in indirect combat (ie EM warfare, computer hacking, etc.), communications, and support.
Cruisercarrier: Cruiser-sized ship dedicated to deploying smaller craft.
Fast Counterer: Medium warship meant to overpower cruisers.
Heavy Counterer: More powerful, less nimble version of the above.
Strike Marauder: Dedicated planetary assault craft, meant to operate with support.
Assault Marauder: Dedicated planetary assault craft, able to operate independently.
Light Battlecruiser: Extreme range, extreme endurance ship specializing in long-range space combat.
Strategic Battlecruiser: Extreme range, extreme endurance ship spcializing in long-range combat and able to support and coordinate large squadrons of other ships.
Fast Battleship: Swift heavy warship adept at medium-range combat.
Command Battleship: Heavy warship specializing in communications and coordination.
Assault Battleship: Resource-intensive heavy warship that is good at just about everything.
Battlecarrier: Battleship-sized ship dedicated to deploying smaller craft and fighters.
Supercarrier: A massive ship dedicated to deploying smaller warships and fighters. Extreme endurance support craft and mobile base of operations for fleets.
Dreadnought: A warship that approaches ridiculousness in size, power, and resource intensity.
Heavy Dreadnought: A warship that is definitely ridiculous in size, power, and resource intensity. There's almost no reason to build these.
Superdreadnought: A warship that is ridiculously ridiculous in size, power, and resource intensity. A few of these are built for the lulz and for the wow factor.
Devastator: An infinitely ridiculous warship that makes no sense whatsoever to spend resources on, but is nonetheless a 50 km long engine of wrathful vengeance and righteous fury.